FAA-Backed Lab Tests Drones for Use in US Skies

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — At Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi, a helicopter drone hovers menacingly over a robot vehicle. The vehicle tries to evade the drone, turning right and left — surging forward and backward. Like an angry wasp, the drone swoops back and forth, staying directly in front of the robot — exactly one meter away, one meter off the ground.

And it does it all without a human at the controls. In fact, human hands can’t replicate what the drone does with such precision.

It’s all part of a series of complex experiments to determine whether drones can be safely integrated into already-crowded US airspace, and what they might best be used for.